Kanna in Love
by Staynobloom
Summary: Kanna and Saikawa are adults now, navigating the complexities of a serious romantic lesbian relationship together. They share an apartment, travel the world, and seek to understand love, intimacy and loneliness through one another. [Yuri]
1. Part 1

Prague was fine in the summer. It wasn't such a restless city like Tokyo, not as lively as New York, and didn't have the unbearable ache of Los Angeles, which burned in July. Prague was all cathedrals and cobblestone roads, and slow moving people who seemed content to be stuck in time as they were, without any preoccupation, or suggestion, of their own decay. There was a spiritual stillness in that, to the people and the roads and the old looming buildings; as though the whole city were a Buddha, or a stone in a brook, quietly sitting and pondering itself as the water went, and especially so in the summer, when it could still be cool mid-July, and people would walk about in cardigans and politely nod.

It was not a dying city, not like Paris. There was no derangement syndrome here; no romanticized expectations that could never come to be. There weren't any guillotines in museums, or many cafes where great painters had once sipped coffee and brooded over nothing. There was a weight of history, and art, and history _in_ art, just as well as anywhere, but didn't seem at all smothering. There was a compounding loneliness.

There was no sense of dread about it, or sorrow that was hard earned; only aesthetic brooding. It simply was. Apartments were barren, girls smoked long pipes and cigarettes, and sometimes you could hear someone sobbing through the walls in a neighboring building or room. Prague was another place to run to; to try to slip into seamlessly, out of want for a new color or a more fitting theme: a city, a life, a point in time to wear like a sleeve, but gain nothing from really.

Gain nothing from.

Kanna Kobayashi, like a city, was both hollow and full of things. That is, empty in an emphatic sense, and full with things that Saikawa didn't understand. Riko Saikawa and Kanna were both twenty-six years old now and had known one another since childhood. Though, _known_, to Saikawa, even now, seemed like an overstatement when it came to her oldest friend. Kanna was cool and brooding now, like a lot of young hip girls in Prague. Her once youthful wariness had blossomed over the years into the detached glow of a young and worldly woman.

She would stand and stare at the window on some nights, into the streetlamps that still burned with oil, and the cobblestone and decay, smoking a slow cigarette and seeming, as she stood and appeared so coolly and detached, to finally embody a theme, and to finally wear a city like a sleeve and simply be. Of all the cities they'd tried to be, this one fit Kanna most.

Saikawa would watch her from the dark of the bedroom, in the apartment that they shared, and feel every bit in love with Kanna as she had when they were schoolgirls. She would admire Kanna from a distance, even now, even as they'd lived together for years, even as they moved together from city to city all around the world. And, she couldn't help feeling that she understood Kanna less and less the more she got to know her. Kanna was as full of mystery and brooding as any city itself.

They shared a bed in their apartment. They'd lived together for years now. They kissed and touched each other at night. They held hands on lonely, rainy nights, and took all the comfort they could from each other's bodies, when it was necessary, or just to quell something in either of them respectively.

They were never seen apart, nearly. For any other set of people under the same circumstances, it would be obvious what they were to one another and spoken in explicit terms. Though, never once had Kanna called Saikawa a partner, a girlfriend, or anything more than even a casual acquaintance. Saikawa didn't understand it and didn't question it. That was how Kanna was. That was how Kanna had always been, and now, as a detached and worldly woman, she was even more so like herself.

The two were lovers, certainly. Whether it was an experimental fling of two lost young women, or something more meaningful remained to be known. It wasn't a secret love affair either. They would kiss in public, albeit rarely. Kanna would casually put an arm around Saikawa. Everyone who knew them knew they were lovers and thought of them as _being together_. In private, there was plenty of sex as well. Though, sex with Kanna was passionless and utilitarian.

Kanna was completely silent during sex; she didn't moan, she didn't blush, and she worked on Saikawa like a machine with a pre-ordained task to complete. (Though, she always completed her task, and Saikawa could not complain in that regard). After sex, Saikawa would often say, "I love you", and Kanna, deadpan and joyless as she'd ever been would respond, without fail, "That's wicked," and then light a cigarette.

Kanna was extremely tall, and Saikawa wondered if they looked awkward together; if there was perhaps some superficial reason like that, which made Kanna stay forever at a distance. They'd been about the same height as girls, then with each year, Kanna grew and grew, all the way to 6'1, while Saikawa barely reached five foot before stopping growing altogether.

Was it because they were both women that Kanna couldn't fully commit, or was it because Saikawa looked like a child out with her mother when the two walked side by side? Sometimes it felt right, as well. Kanna could be standing at the window, brooding with her cigarette, and, without warning or change in expression, go to Saikawa, scoop her up and carry her like a new bride to the bedroom for a passionless, utilitarian hour or two of love-making.

When Kanna felt like being domineering, Saikawa folded. Whether it was pinning her against the wall for a hard, emotionless kiss, or taking and using her body when and as it was needed. Any bit of attention from Kanna was savory, even if it was all entirely passionless.

Perhaps because trying to obtain Kanna's love was like running on a wheel. Ever since that day when they were young girls and Kanna pinned Saikawa to the floor and expressed a desire to be "closer". Everything felt like progress, every bit of affection or conversation, and then immediately slipped away upon the wheel, and it all kept spinning, for years and years, with no tangible end in sight.

Saikawa could see herself marrying Kanna. She could hardly imagine Kanna feeling the same, or feeling anything at all.


	2. Part 2

It was one of those rainy, lonely days in Prague. When Saikawa had woken up that morning, Kanna wasn't next to her in bed, and, in fact, had left the apartment altogether. So Saikawa made tea and stood by the window with her mug, watching the rain fall, and wanting to be warmed.

Normally on days like this the two girls would stay in and hold each other, and fight back the loneliness together. Saikawa didn't smoke and brood like Kanna. She just waited whenever she found herself by a window, and took upon the brunt of that compounding loneliness without vice to ease her. Sometimes Kanna would disappear by herself on days like this. She would go in her dragon form and fly away alone for many hours. Saikawa would ask where she'd gone when she returned, and Kanna would answer, dryly, "Out."

It didn't happen often, not enough to be a serious issue of contention for them. And, besides, Kanna really didn't belong to anyone, did she? She would never say girlfriend or partner explicitly. So Saikawa could only sip her tea, watch the rain fall, and stare into the distant sky over those far off cathedrals, waiting for a white dragon that looked like an angel to appear. Kanna still couldn't block perception after all these years. So she'd become the angel of Prague; a radiant thing that sometimes appeared in the sky, and that some people swore they saw but weren't quite sure.

The day went on. The gray and light drizzle turned to a black, churning thunderstorm. The rain beat against the window. Saikawa curled up on the couch in a ball, in front of the television. There was nothing much on the TV. She scrolled through her phone for a while.

She laid back for a while, staring at the ceiling and listening to the low, rolling thunder. There was a ceaselessness to it all. The apartment was barren, like Kanna. A simple couch, white walls, no decorations. All of their apartments had been like this.

They moved so often it was never any use making themselves at home. Their bed in their bedroom, where they made utilitarian love, had plain colored sheets and a solid gray quilt. The tea kettle, still on the stove now, whistled and seemed to be singing in the emptiness of the apartment, like a wale, in a cave, from something in the far off dark.

There was a ceaselessness to this life that all felt as dull as making love to Kanna in that bedroom on those plain sheets. It was as though all of Prague's compounding loneliness were a reflection of her lover's spirit, ceaseless and loveless, and all of it only existed through a brooding window; and if she were to leave and fly away herself, there would be nothing actually there and nowhere to really go. The city would be entirely hollow.

Saikawa began to cry as she lay there. It wasn't the sort of violent sobbing that she'd sometimes heard through the walls from other apartments. It was just a cry, like a soft rain, that seemed in line with the theme and color of the city. It was a cry like a sleeve she could wear for a moment, and recall the texture of later, in some other city, in some other color, where Kanna would still feel nothing and still make love to her like a machine.

Saikawa had fallen asleep there on the couch by the time Kanna returned later that afternoon. It was still raining. Saikawa awoke with a kiss on the forehead; then Kanna's thumb, affectionately rubbing her forehead. Saikawa looked up at Kanna. She was lying draped over the silver haired dragon girl's lap; Kanna had apparently come home and positioned her that way without waking her. Kanna wasn't smiling, and her face wasn't warm.

She was as dull as ever as she stroked Saikawa's forehead and held her lovingly. Or was it even lovingly? Saikawa teared up again.

"Where did you go?" she whispered.

"Out."

Saikawa sighed and turned over in Kanna's lap. She pounded her fists in a frustrated but gentle way against Kanna's leg.

"Idiot," she said, eyes still watering, still pounding her fists over and over. "Idiot. I needed you today."

"I'm here now."

"I know that..." Saikawa buried her face in Kanna's lap.

Kanna petted Saikawa on top of her head. "Saikawa. I got you a present."

Saikawa sat up and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. "What is it?" she asked, curious.

Kanna reached for a bag on the coffee table and removed an object from it. She handed the thing to Saikawa.

"A camera?" Saikawa asked, examining the odd gift. It was an old Polaroid camera. One of those ones that spat out instant photos. It looked like an expensive antique.

"It will be fun. To take pictures of each other."

Saikawa looked up from the camera to Kanna's face. Her expression was soulless as ever, but she was actually blushing, just slightly. Or maybe Saikawa was imagining things, because she hadn't seen Kanna blush since they were schoolgirls.

"Okay..." Saikawa said hesitantly, looking back down at the camera, then up at Kanna, then back to the camera.

"Come on. Let's go."

Kanna stood up to her towering full height. She grabbed Saikawa by the hand, pulled her off the couch and began leading her toward the bedroom. Saikawa, as always, was obedient. In fact, she was relieved to have Kanna home and grabbing her forcibly again.

There was always a part of her that believed, on those days Kanna flew away by herself, that she would never return. And without Kanna, the emptiness would finally swallow her. And, too, with being taken to the bedroom by Kanna, the feeling that she was running on a wheel vanished momentarily, and she could swear this was real progress, and a new sort of attention from the woman she loved that would lead somewhere tangible. Just once.

Once in the bedroom, Kanna closed the door behind them and then motioned to the plain colored bed.

"Lie there," she commanded. Saikawa did as she was told and climbed into the bed. Kanna took the camera from her.

Kanna stood over her then, looking through the lens of the camera for a while, adjusting her position slightly, little by little, as though she were trying to get an ideal sort of shot. Finally, she snapped a photo, and there was a bright flash and shutter sound from the old camera.

Saikawa swallowed. Her eyes were still red and puffy, and her cheeks were still wet with tears. Kanna retrieved the instant photo from the camera, shook it, and then, without looking at it, set it aside atop of the dresser by the door. She approached Saikawa on the bed and set the camera down.

"Take this off." She reached for Saikawa's shirt and pulled it off in one swift, forceful motion.

"Kanna..." Saikawa said, covering her chest, clad now in only a bra.

Kanna picked the camera up and stood back to take another photo.

"Lower your hands from your chest," Kanna demanded, with the camera already raised to her eye.

"Okay..." again, Saikawa obeyed, lowering her hands and exposing herself.

"That's wicked," Kanna said as another flash and shutter filled the room. "Hold still."

Kanna kept the camera up to her eye and circled around to the side of the bed and snapped another photo there. Then to the other side and took another picture there. She set the new photos down on the dresser and approached Kanna on the bed again.

"Now take this off." With little effort, Kanna removed Saikawa's bra and tossed it aside onto the floor.

Saikawa said nothing. This time she made no attempt to cover her now completely bare breasts. Instead, she leaned back onto her hands and held her chest out for Kanna to see. Her eyes were still red from crying, and her face was still flushed, but she appeared eager now.

"Is this good, Kanna?" she asked, leaning back more to expose as much of her flesh as possible.

Kanna held the camera up just below her eye-line and stared at Saikawa's breasts for a long while, as though she were thinking about it. Instead of taking a picture, she approached the bed and set the camera down again and then climbed into the bed and crawled toward Saikawa.

She lowered herself to Saikawa's body, grabbed her around her naval, and then began sucking on one of her nipples. She sucked hard on the right one for a while, swirled her tongue around the nipple, bit it a little, taking as much of Saikawa's breast in her mouth as she could, and then stopped, removed the breast from her mouth and examined it.

She did it all with a business-like apathy. Then she did the same to the other one. Saikawa moaned and squirmed the whole time, so much so that Kanna had to grip her hard around her sides and hold her still while she sucked the breasts, as Saikawa was as full of passion and feeling as she always was during any sexual contact with Kanna.

After it was done, Kanna let Saikawa go, picked up the camera and stood over her again.

"It will look better if your nipples are hard," Kanna explained matter-of-factly.

Saikawa was a panting, blushing mess, and Kanna had certainly achieved her goal. There was a flash and a shutter and another photo. Then another, and another, and another, all from different angles and heights around the bed.

Saikawa was trembling now. Her nipples were still wet with Kanna's saliva and stiff and pointing. She held her position on the bed while Kanna stood over by the dresser examining the collection of photos she had taken so far.

Saikawa could only wonder what to make of all this. It was a completely new sexual activity for them. Was taking photos like this erotic for Kanna? Was this the true love at the end of the wheel, or more emptiness?

Surely, Kanna wanted pretty pictures of her woman. Saikawa wanted to be that woman for her. Surely that wasn't a hollow sentiment for either of them. Though, even in this, Kanna had been like a technician. It had been surgical and emotionless, even the breast sucking.

"These are good," Kanna said, and gathered up the photos into a stack.

"Do you want to take any more?" Saikawa spat out eagerly. "Should I take my pants off? And my panties? Do you want some of me fully nude?"

"No." Kanna picked up the stack of pictures and the camera and walked over to Saikawa. She held out the camera and presented it. "Take some of me now."

Saikawa swallowed. Her face was hot and glowing. Her breath was slow and rising in her still bare chest. She looked at the offered camera. "...On the bed?"

Kanna shook her head. "By the window."

Saikawa raised an eyebrow curiously. She took the camera.


	3. Part 3

Saikawa wondered what it was for Kanna. So often she wished she could look inside of Kanna's head and see exactly what she was thinking. She wasn't sure Kanna had ever even had an orgasm, or what Kanna got out of _any _sexual activity with her.

And now, taking photos of each other. Kanna always remained so cool, even in bed. Most of the time during their love-making, Saikawa would start off fully intending to please Kanna, and be an equally contributing partner; wanting, not to just lie back and take it, but to achieve a rhythm of _give-and-_take that could approach the idyllic notion of feminine love that seemed so clear and divine in her fantasies of it.

She'd been fantasizing about it since she was nine years old. But, each time it would happen in reality, she would fail: a wrist pinned over her head, an ankle grabbed, an ear bitten; a tall dragon girl with long fingers looming over her, staring blankly down and forcing submissive orgasm after submissive orgasm upon her, before she fell back completely limp, shaking and unable to contribute. Kanna was incredibly cool and brooding, even in those most vulnerable moments. Saikawa wished she could read Kanna's mind and _know_, just once.

Now Saikawa found herself by the window with Kanna. Kanna fully clothed, and Saikawa still topless and only wearing panties. Kanna went and stood in front of the window, as the rain fell and tapped against it. She smoked and posed and commanded Saikawa when and from what angle to snap a photo. There were flashes and shutters and pictures falling.

"Let me see," Kanna said after a good handful of instant photos had been taken.

She looked through them and Saikawa stood by nervously twiddling her thumbs. Kanna had no expression toward any photo, one after another, as she shuffled through the stack. Though Kanna was the subject in the pictures, Saikawa felt wholly responsible for how they turned out. Finally, Kanna finished looking and returned the stack of pictures to Saikawa.

"These are nice," she said. "You have a good eye, Saikawa."

Saikawa got butterflies in her stomach. "I... suppose it's easy when I have such a good subject to photograph."

"Let's take a few more."

"Sure."

But Kanna didn't return to the window or light another cigarette. She stood as she was, took her top off and threw it on the floor. Then did the same with her bra, her shorts, and her socks until she was only in her panties, like Saikawa. She had undressed so casually that Saikawa did her best to remain cool too. Inside, she was burning with emotion.

Though she'd seen Kanna naked plenty of times by now, and in plenty of different apartments and cities, the novelty of it never seemed to wear thin. If she had known, as a young girl, she would get to see this sight so often and so casually, she would have rushed toward the future with open arms. This was a fully bloomed Kanna Kobayashi: tall, more beautiful than she'd ever been, and, after she slid her panties down and kicked them off, completely naked in front of Saikawa.

The rest of the world could be as barren and crying with rain as it wanted. This view could fill it completely. Kanna was a work of art, in feminine, human, dragon form. Absolute woman; and now, in her casual nudity, in the middle of lighting another cigarette, seemed to embody all of Prague itself. She was the angel of Prague. Saikawa burned inside to see it so purely. For better or worse, at the very least, seeing Kanna naked always confirmed to Saikawa that she was, indeed, as gay as a girl could be, and not the least bit bi, not going through a phase, or interested in men in any way shape or form.

What it all meant to Kanna, on the other hand, was still a mystery. But this was no passing fling for Saikawa. This was a woman she loved, in any city, by any window. Kanna smoked and brooded now, moving back in front of the window.

"Take my picture, Saikawa," she spoke, low and seductive.

Part of Saikawa wanted to tell Kanna to come away from the open window, because someone from the street might look up and see her. But Saikawa knew that would be in vain. It was so evident by Kanna's poise, evident in the confident way she stood, with her back straight, both arms raised behind her head and teasing her own hair, and the smoking cigarette dangling coolly between her lips, and all that white naked flesh so proudly displayed, that she did not care who saw her, whether it be Saikawa her lover, some passerby on the street, or the flashing eye of a Polaroid camera snapping and snapping and snapping.

So Saikawa said nothing and took the photo. And another. And another. Photos ejected from the camera and fell to the floor, scattering everywhere soon enough. And Kanna stretched and turned, showing off every part of her body with such tasteful, elegant poses. She stood facing forward, bare white breasts on full display, put one hand on her hips, one on her cigarette, spread her legs slightly apart so that her vagina was just visible for the camera to see, and she dragged, blew smoke and pouted.

Saikawa took a photo, and another, and another. Kanna turned around and showed her whole naked backside, her head slightly turned to make smoldering eye-contact with the camera. Saikawa had to take a breath before she could even take that picture. She had to look away from the lens of the camera and see it with her own eyes.

Kanna looked like moonlight come to life. Her back, her butt, her legs were all radiant and seemed to shine, even in the dull light of the cloudy day through the window. Saikawa took a photo, and another, and another. Flash. Snap. Flash. Snap.

When it was all done, Saikawa tossed the camera onto the couch. The floor was littered with instant Polaroid snapshots everywhere. The camera had run out of photos to take. Saikawa approached Kanna where she stood naked and smoking. She forced her body into Kanna's, pushed her against the window until Kanna's naked back was pressed into the glass; and, in that sudden gesture of attack, the cigarette fell from Kanna's lips to the floor, and Kanna stamped it out with her bare foot; Saikawa stood on the very tips of her toes then, wrapped her arms around the tops of Kanna's shoulders, around the back of her neck, and gave the tall dragon girl a slow, sensuous kiss right there in the open window, with that radiant naked body exposed to the whole city, a hot cigarette burning beneath Kanna's bare foot, and photographs all around them.

Kanna grabbed Saikawa by the hips then and forced her forward, away from the window. She picked up the smaller girl off the ground. Saikawa instinctively wrapped her legs around Kanna's waist upon being lifted.

Now Kanna returned the kiss with a harder, more invasive kiss of her own. She probed Saikawa's mouth with her tongue. She lifted one of her hands to pull Saikawa's head back with a fistful of her hair, then once the smaller girl had her head back and mouth open, gently spat inside her mouth with a slow, deliberate drip of saliva, before putting her tongue back in and kissing again.

When their lips parted, Kanna hugged Saikawa tighter, and moved her mouth to Saikawa's ear. She whispered, deadpan as ever: "Let's be even closer now."

Saikawa melted inside. She buried her face in Kanna's neck and dug her nails into the dragon girl's naked back. (Surely, the wheel had moved this time). And, as the nails gripped, Kanna's hand went down Saikawa's panties, and she pushed two long fingers as deep as they would go into the now writhing girl's vagina. Saikawa tightened her legs around Kanna's waist and pushed into the fingers with her hips, and then sank her teeth into the flesh of the neck at her lips.

Kanna actually winced slightly at the teeth in her neck, then curled her fingers and prodded for Saikawa's most sensitive spot inside, making her release the bite, throw back her head and cry out.

Saikawa wrapped her legs again around Kanna as tightly as she could, squeezed her inner walls around the fingers inside her, and dug her nails into Kanna's back so hard she thought she might draw blood. If she held on tight enough, maybe her body could even meld right into Kanna's and they could become one, she figured. In moments like these, it all seemed possible still. Though, there had been so many moments like this before, in so many other apartments, in so many other cities. And the wheel kept spinning yet.

By the end of it, they were both fully naked on the floor, all with the photos and the cigarettes and discarded clothes and underwear around them. The rain had slowed to a drizzle outside. It was night now. Everything breathed with the cool quiet of the dark and the rain. Saikawa was panting and sweaty; Kanna was down between Saikawa's legs giving her slow, lazy oral that wouldn't overwhelm her anymore: mostly just kissing her inner thighs and softly lapping at her vagina every so often, all to bring her down gently from those digital orgasms.

This was a typical afterglow for them. For Saikawa, it was timeless here. She wanted to stay like this forever.


	4. Part 4

Again it was one of those lonely, rainy nights in Prague. A few more weeks had passed since the last one. Then a month since the one after that. It would be Kanna's 27th birthday soon, then Saikawa's soon after. Time would just melt and flow away with Kanna, Saikawa knew.

She often wondered how long they really had together, since she would live forever and Kanna would. For Kanna, perhaps, what it was, was something not at all significant then. A raindrop in an ocean of endless time, and endless lovers, and endless rain.

A dragon could and would probably have many mates over such a long lifespan. Saikawa, as far she could tell, would have only one. Soon Kanna would want to leave Prague. They would go to a new place, to try to find and savor something that could perhaps have a more permanent color.

What they were running from, Saikawa understood, in some quiet subconscious place in the back of her mind that often came to the forefront of her thoughts to prick her with little pangs of sadness now and again, was her mortality. They couldn't be together forever. Love was fleeting either way, Saikawa understood.

All feelings and colors and wheels would eventually return to a barren room, when they could no longer run or prolong themselves in an afterglow. Now they had a drawer full of secret photos. Saikawa wondered if those photos would outlive her, and if Kanna would look at them some days, and if her heart would ache for that summer in Prague, on Earth, when she'd given being a lesbian a real shot, with that weird human girl with the big forehead, a hundred years ago or however long.

Or if she would sink away in Kanna's heart, like a raindrop in an ocean. Like a cigarette that fell to the floor and was stamped out. Like a photo that didn't really matter and could just blow away, and have meant nothing to anyone at all.

Saikawa and Kanna sat side by side on the sofa watching an old horror movie on Netflix. Saikawa clung to Kanna's arm, and buried her face in Kanna's chest any time something scary happened. Kanna remained cool and calm no matter what happened.

It was fleeting, but it was also warm.


End file.
